I've argued that the implications of Steven Pinker's “Better Angels” looks to be that there is little reason anthropology and Medieval Studies should continue to exist. This was an exaggeration. He posits all the peoples anthropologists tend to study, as well as the entire medieval period, as “id,” which means they had the worst table manners you could possibly imagine, they were gross ... I mean, really, really gross, and about a hundred time more likely to stab a neighbour over a trivial matter as you, civilized reader. But even though these people were to him not making use of the capacity of the brain to still these impulses, they nevertheless represent a manner in which even contemporaries might slip back to if for some reason they let their current focus on reason slip, so in that sense they are still relevant to today. They are part of what ostensibly remains innate about us, part of something Pinker fears, so he allows the same room to study them...